"...
And that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents--and only one for birthday presents, you know.
There's glory for you!" "I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.
"Of course you don't--till I tell you.
I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,"it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.
" "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things.
" "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all.
" Lewis Carroll-Through the Looking Glass-1872

Years ago, if I had to reach for the dictionary while writing a brief, it generally meant I was in deep trouble.
The facts were bad and the statutes and cases didn't say what I needed them to, if I was to prevail.
If Webster defined some of the crucial terms differently than the Michigan Courts or Legislature had, at least it would give me some argument to make before the judge.
And I could cite a learned tome, a dictionary, as some sort of authority for my position.
This tactic seldom worked in practice, as a dictionary definition of a single word, without regard to its particular context, factual or legal, was not held to be terribly relevant.
The current Michigan Supreme Court has given dictionaries the type of deference other Courts usually reserve for the principle of stare decisis.
Some may believe that in this state, dictionaries have replaced prior precedent as authority.
I might not go so far, but it is hard to deny that a dictionary is as often the source of a Court's decision as a volume of Michigan Reports.
Thus far, I have used the article "a", rather than "the" when referring to dictionary books.
We used to refer to "the dictionary" definition of a word when we wanted to state the single, precise, unarguable, universally accepted meaning of a particular word.
Well, I Googled the word "dictionary" and got 170,000,000 hits.
Restrict that search to the term "online dictionary" and you still get over 70,000,000 results.
If a word has a single, precise, universally accepted meaning, we probably don't need 70,000,000 sources to be able to find it.
On the other hand, maybe the wealth of online dictionaries is an indication that words do not always have single precise meanings that must be accepted as authoritative for all purposes.
In the case of Sington v Chrysler Corp.
467 Mich 144 (2002), the Michigan Supreme Court reached for a dictionary, and used it to overturn prior precedent, holding the prior case as "wrongly decided.
"Sington is a Worker's Compensation case, and, admittedly, I do not specialize in that area.
Anyway, the Court indicated that the language of the Comp statute defines disability to mean a limitation of an employee's wage earning capacity in work suitable to his or her qualifications and training resulting from a personal injury or occupational disease.
Then the Court reaches for a dictionary to definition of "capacity.
"According to the Webster's New World Dictionary (3d College ed) the pertinent definition of "capacity" is "maximum output or producing ability.
" (The quotes surrounding the definition are taken from the decision.
) To quote from the decision:"So understood, a condition that rendered an employee unable to perform a job paying the maximum salary, given the employee's qualifications and training, but leaving the employee free to perform an equally well-paying position suitable to his qualifications and training would not constitute a disability.
" Relying on a dictionary definition of capacity, the Supreme Court overturned the prior precedent,Haske v Transport Leasing Inc.
455 Mich 628(1997).
The Sington case does not focus on the injured worker's inability to do the job he was doing at the time of injury, put seems to put upon that worker the burden of proving he cannot do the whole range of jobs at the maximum pay rate for which his training qualified him.
Presumably this means jobs with his employer at the time of accident or any other hypothetical employer.
Practitioners have told me that this was a major change from long established interpretation, and might require the hiring of a vocational expert by the injured worker in every case.
I have been told about some even more pervasive changes that could result from the decision, and I do not have the expertise to reliably set them forth here.
However, it is felt that some of the repercussions of this decision might effectively preclude lower paid workers from the benefits of the Worker's Comp system.
That would be a shame.
Apart from my concern for the injured workers of this state, I am very concerned about using a dictionary to provide new definitions for terms already established by prior judicial precedent.
Take the definition of the term "capacity" used by the Court in Sington as an example.
I Googled the definition of "capacity" used as authoritative (and quoted) in the decision.
Given the over 70,000,000 online dictionaries, I was interested to see how many times this "precise" definition of the word was found.
Precise number of results:34.
By the way, the phrase: "Lions win Super Bowl" resulted in 1400 hits.
Back to the results for the definition of "capacity", half a dozen were references to the Sington decision itself.
Two were from Russian/English dictionaries, and one was from a Polish/English dictionary.
And one was from a dictionary whose language I could not figure out after fifteen minutes trying.
Several references were from separate parts of the same freight shipping glossary, and several more from a supply chain management guide.
All in all, this did not impress me as particularly authoritative.
To provide further context, the sentence:"Cigarettes are good for you," resulted in 11,300 hits.
Finally, I had in my possession a hard cover copy of the "New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language", which sounds more impressive than some collegiate (probably soft-cover as well) book.
"Capacity" is defined on page 120, column 1, and the words "maximum output" do not appear.
What a shock.
President James Madison once said:"Do not separate text from historical background.
If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
" Present times are proving President Madison correct.
Words can now mean whatever our Supreme Court wants them to mean at any given time, with only the thinnest façade of authority provided.
In Michigan we may well feel we are through the looking glass with Alice and Humpty Dumpty, as we lighting up our medicinal Camels and watching Matt Millen hoist the Lombardi Trophy.
Michigan deserves better than this.